


A Family Matter

by sociallychallengednerd



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Cardassian Culture, Established Relationship, M/M, Mila finds out about Julian, late season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23608390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sociallychallengednerd/pseuds/sociallychallengednerd
Summary: Damar has several realizations about Garak, but more importantly Mila has a realization of her own. And Garak had better watch out.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 20
Kudos: 159





	A Family Matter

**Author's Note:**

> Fuckin quarantine making productive. This is awful. 
> 
> An idea sparked from all the babel trek fics I’ve been reading lately. 
> 
> For those wondering, Julian and Garak secretly got married before Garak left for Cardassia with Kira.

It was Kira who started it. They sat, each curled up on their own cots, Kira with a scavenged cooling unit and Garak and Damar with blankets over their shoulders. Garak had opened a bottle of kanar that they were all passing around, even Commander Kira. It was an expensive vintage, and Damar almost felt bad passing it around taking swigs from the bottle like it was that synthetic swill the Federation drank, but he suspected Garak took a special kind of pleasure in drinking through Enabrain Tain’s good kanar (and if that thought didn’t send a cold thrill through Damar). It made sense he supposed knowing that Garak was Tain’s unclaimed son, something Damar was still trying to wrap his head around. 

“You know what?” They both looked to Kira taking a swig from the bottle before handing it off to Garak, her eyes lost in the middle distance and a small smile on her face. “Once this is all finished, you know what I really want? A glass of spring wine and a big plate of hasperat.” 

Damar frowned wondering where this was coming from. They were trapped in a basement with no allies, no supplies, and nowhere to go. “Is this really the time to be thinking about things like that?”

“Now, now,” Garak interrupted. “It won’t do us any good to be depressing like this.”

“When you’re fighting a war like this it’s important to remember what you’re doing it for, but even more so it’s important to remember why you need to survive it. So, come on Damar, what do you want?”

The thought came to him in an instant: his wife, his son. He wanted them back, but Damar was never going to see them again. All he could do was get revenge on those who had taken them from him. He didn’t think that was the kind of answer they were looking for though. It did really go against the point of lifting the mood. 

“Right now, I want to sit on a sunning rock under the Cardassian sun in the afternoon.” Damar said after a moment. He old see Garak nodding along with him. 

“What about you Garak?” Kira turned to him. “I’m sure there’s someone you’re missing right now.” There was a teasing smirk on her lips, and Garak gave a conceding tilt of the head a small smile playing on the edge of his own lips.

“I won’t deny it, I would very much like to see Julian right now.” 

That took Damar aback. He didn’t know if Kira had noticed, or if Garak’s Kardassi had lost the nuance through her Universal Translator. He knew Garak was close to Doctor Bashir, but that was a very familiar address that he had used, intimately familiar. 

Damar resisted the initial disgust that came from the idea of a Cardassian enjoining with an alien. He knew the Doctor to be an intelligent man, and Garak had spent the last seven years as an exile. It made sense that he would form attachment to aliens, Damar told himself ignoring his own distaste for the idea. He had already thrown out so many of his other previous beliefs during this whole experience, why not his disapproval of inter species enjoinment?

Damar’s head snapped up at the very deliberate sound from above him. Mila stood at the top of the stairs her face the very picture of stern disapproval, her eyes fixed firmly past him to Garak. Damar glanced back to the man in question. Garak had risen to his feet, his ridges had gone positively white, his eyes wide, and the hint of a nervous smile trembling at the corner of his mouth.

“Mila-,” 

Damar didn’t think he had ever seen Garak at such a loss for words. He shared a look with Kira who seemed to be having the same thought. Would Mila throw them back out onto the street over this? Humans weren’t a subjugated people so it wasn’t necessarily illegal for Garak to be enjoined to the Doctor, but subjugated or not many Cardassians wouldn’t approve of an enjoining with any alien.

Mila didn’t respond, just slowly made her way down the stairs tray in hand. Without a word she set down the tray handing bowls to Damar and Kira in turn. She took the last bowl and rather than handing it to Garak set it on the table to the side by his cot before straightening up again and facing him. Damar was surprised at the superior tilt of her head and posture. It was incredibly improper for a member of the serving class. Mila might have been his elder, and that did afford her an amount of respect, but to take such a domineering position? Even more surprising was watching the way Garak’s body instantly shifted in response conveying deference and submission as he tipped his head slightly, lowering his shoulders. 

“Julian,” Mila used the same intimate address Garak had used earlier, her mouth feeling out the strangeness of the blatantly alien name. Garak stood with a worrying stillness. “I hadn’t realized you had so bonded your lifeline to someone.” 

Still Garak said nothing, and Damar could only silently watch the tense exchange.

“Who are they?” 

“He’s a human doctor in Starfleet stationed on Deep Space 9.” Damar was struck by how much Garak’s clipped and flat, if respectful, response reminded him of a soldier delivering an unfavorable report or a child admitting to breaking a vase to a parent. 

“How long ago did this happen?”

“A couple of months ago, before we left the station.” 

“And before that? How long did this go on?” Damar felt as though he were watching two immovable objects staring off. 

“Roughly about two years.” 

“Two years,” Mila repeated, raising an eyeridge, and Damar watched Garak’s composure crack a bit. 

Kira looked like she wanted to say something, but Damar gave her a shake of the head and she seemed to settle back into her seat. 

“Two years, and you didn’t contact me?” 

Damar frowned, contact her? Now he was confused. What obligation would Garak have to inform his late father’s housekeeper of his courtship or his enjoinment? 

“It didn’t seem like a good idea making contact.” 

“You contacted me before.”

“That was important,” Garak objected. Mila raised an eyeridge again and Garak’s mouth snapped shut. 

“You should have gotten my permission.” 

Permission? That’s when it suddenly clicked. Garak is the unclaimed son of Enabrain Tain, an unjoined man, who speaks familiarly with his housekeeper and shows her deference. Damar took the time to look them both over again. They were both on the shorter side with solid, stocky frames characteristic of the serving class, they had the same nose, and the same determined set to their jaw. 

Suddenly Damar found himself recontextualizing the confrontation sitting back a bit further on his cot in an effort to be a bit further out of the way. Damar couldn’t imagine having to face his mother or father after not only beginning a courtship without their approval, but getting enjoined, and that was without accounting for the fact that Doctor Bashir was an alien.

“I’m already an exile. It hardly seemed like it would matter.” Garak’s tone carried an air of petulance. Mila’s face hardened further, and Damar resisted the urge to wince.

“You knew I was alive and you had the ability to contact me, so you should have.” Garak didn’t say anything to that. 

Finally Mila let out a resigned breath turning to pick back up her tray. Damar felt some of the tension in the room lessen, and allowed himself to relax a bit.

“I expect you to bring him here. I will be meeting him.” 

“Mila-“ Garak started to protest his composure throughly cracked now, and his growing discomfort showing through, but she ignored him making her way up the stairs. 

“If you don’t bring him here to meet me I will go to that station myself, Garak. Do not think I won’t.” 

“Wait, you can’t honestly-,” Damar watched Garak set off up the stairs after her talking in hushed voices now. 

“So, what the hell was that exactly?” Damar turned to look at Kira, who did in fact look very confused. 

“Apparently, Garak neglected to ask his family’s permission to enjoin with Doctor Bashir.”

“Wait, they’re married?” Kira leaned in surprised and delightfully scandalized. She glanced back up to the top of the stairs. “Then she’s…” Kira trailed off letting the implication hang in the air. Damar just nodded.

There was a gleeful little smile pulling at the corner of her mouth now. “She’s going to kill him, isn’t she?”

Damar looked back up to where Garak and Mila stood in heated talks and thought again about his own parents. “If he’s lucky.” 

Kira choked on a laugh, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. She shared a look with Damar and he couldn’t help smothering a laugh of his own.


End file.
